About FoodMayhem

In the chaotic kitchen of a recipe developer, you get a food blog called FoodMayhem.

I'm Jessica, an Asian-American, born and raised in NYC, and that's Lon, my Jewish, white husband. While professionally trained as a French culinary- and pastry chef, many of FoodMayhem recipes are my attempt to preserve and share authentic Chinese and Taiwanese recipes learned from my mom. We don't eat Chinese food every day, so you'll get a little bit of anything we find delicious enough to share: from our Eastern European side; recipes and techniques learned from my restaurant days; restaurant reviews, food travel tips; and a few other juicy bits along the way. Welcome to FoodMayhem!

Tuesday, June 22, 2010

Finally! We moved, but it’s not all smooth sailing yet. We’re living out of boxes and we don’t have a kitchen yet. While our perfect kitchen is being built (which we will be talking about soon), I’m going to have to get crafty. I do have many plug-in appliances (rice cooker, toaster oven, panini press, waffle maker, microwave, etc.) so we’re still going to have a ball here. I think we’re going to be pleasantly surprised with how much I (or you) can do without a kitchen. (Gulp) Determined to eat well every single day without exceptions, here goes…

In grade school, one of my favorite packed lunches was a Potato Salad Sandwich. As a grade-schooler, I assumed that this potato salad was Chinese food because that’s what mom makes, Chinese food. It wasn’t until later that I realized that it didn’t really fit. Then, I started thinking it was just one of the few American dishes my mom knew how to make. She did make spaghetti occasionally too. Over time, I started to find that none of my American friend’s moms made potato salad this way. My friends would stare at my lunch and ask, what is that? That lead to the belief that it was just my mom’s own concoction. She has a lot of those so I thought nothing of it.

It wasn’t until late in high school, where I had a lot more Chinese American friends, that I found friends who’s moms made potato salad in this way. It was only the Chinese American ones. Hmm? A few of my aunts make this potato salad (and did not learn it from my mom) and I’ve seen it at a few Chinese bakeries. I even saw a very similar one on another Chinese American blog, Ga Ga in the Kitchen. I have not yet unlocked this mystery so maybe you’ll all help me out, but it seems to be some version of potato salad that has spread among the Chinese American population.

I’m not sure of the lineage of this dish, but I do know that it brings me back to childhood. It reminds me of packed lunches, which for me were always great since my mom is a fantastic cook. I love the different textures, some that crunch and some that pop. The potatoes are soft and starchy and the whole thing is creamy. The saltiness of the ham really brings it all together. You can eat it as is or put it between soft white bread for a hearty sandwich. It’s a kid-pleaser. Well, it certainly was for me.

Chinese American Potato Salad~about 8 cups

1 1/4 cup peas (freshly shelled or frozen)

3/4 cup diced (1/4″) carrot

3 cups diced (3/4″) cooked russet potato

2 cups diced (1/4″) ham

3 large hard-boiled eggs, chopped

1/2 cup + 3 tablespoons mayonnaise

1 tablespoon honey dijon mustard

kosher salt and freshly ground white pepper to taste

Instructions –

1. Bring a pot of salted water to a boil. Meanwhile, set up a bowl of salted ice water on the side.

2. Put peas into boiling water for about 2 minutes, or just until tender but not mushy. Scoop out with strainer and set in ice water immediately. Set aside to drain thoroughly and cool.

3. Bring water back to a boil, making sure you have ice water reset. Cook carrots for about 4 minutes, or until tender. Place in ice water immediately. Drain thoroughly and set aside to cool.

4. Before you assemble, make sure all ingredients are dry and cool. You don’t want excess water and you don’t want the ingredients to be warm.

5. In a large bowl, toss together peas, carrots, potato, ham, egg, mayonnaise, and mustard. Season to taste. Serve as is or in a sandwich.

Storage: Keep in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 5 days.

posted by jessica at 08:44 AM
Filed under Fusion, Recipes.
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29 Responses to “Chinese American Potato Salad”

This looks delicious! My fiance is Ukrainian and his mother and grandmother always make a russian potato salad (actually it’s originally French) called Salad Olivier that is similar. It has diced potatoes, diced ham, vegetables, and pickles in it. It’s very cream and addictive. I’ve never thought to make a sandwich out of it, but I can imagine that would be super tasty!!

This reminds me of the “Japanese” version, only take away the mustard and add a bit of onion, thinly sliced cucumber (salt&squeeze out liquid), and a splash of vinegar. My mom would add diced apples to this, which adds a sweet/crunchy goodness!

Jessica! My mom use to make potato salad just like this for us growing up and I was baffled as to why none of the other p-salads I tasted were ever the same, that is until she told me it was something she made up!!! This is hilarious – there must be a book of American eats with an Asian twist somewhere that got passed around from one immigrant to another when they first came to this country!
The difficulty I found with reproducing my mom’s recipe was that somehow she was able to find thick ham and cube it almost exact! Funny enough, the only time I was able to have something similar was when I was in Taiwan one summer and had it as a side at a afternoon tea place.
My mom always used Japanese mayo in her potato salad as it tends to be slightly more on the sweet side. I think you can buy it at Asian stores already seasoned sweeter or add sugar to make your own. The brand I remember my mom using growing up is the Kewpie (not sure if I got the name exactly right) brand with a red drawing of a baby.
Either way, I will definitely have to make the Chinese version potato salad this summer!
BTW – I’m going to give the wontons a whirl tonight! 🙂

This sandwich sounds fantastic! It’s similar to how we do ours, but different enough that I can’t wait to try it. I sometimes make my potato salads into sandwiches, but most people I know do not. We keep our pieces much larger, too. My mom makes her potato salad with almost as much egg in it as she does potato. I bet she’d love ham in hers! We’ve never added ham to any of our versions of potato salad. I don’t think I can talk her into the peas but she might like the addition of carrots. Thanks for sharing this recipe. I look forward to trying it as is, and combining things from yours into our family recipes! Your recipe is going into my rotation of things to make next week!

I usually just add sugar to my mayo if I want the sweeter taste rather than buy the kewpie, although I don’t really remember whether there is a big diff. in taste between homemade or premade.

The wontons turned out awesome! Thanks for asking. It took me a little bit to get a hang of wrapping them up into pretty little packages – but got the hang of it by the 3rd or 4th one. I had to repeat to myself that less is more when it comes to these little guys and I was pressing them pretty hard to make sure they didn’t come apart during the cooking process. I’ve never wrapped them the way you had shown, so this was a first for me in that respect. I did add diced shitake mushrooms to mine and garlic powder to give it extra texture and taste and I sealed them with dabs of beaten egg b/c I was really paranoid they would come apart when I went to boil them (happens to me all the time when I make dumplings, so I worry…!). The only thing I guess appeared different to me was that whenever I order these in restaurants, it seemed as if the dough was somewhat thinner…it might be the way they are wrapped though. Do you have a soup recipe to go with these little guys? We ate them yesterday just boiled with sauce like we would dumplings, but would love to incorporate them into a soup of some type.
Which leads me to my next question – what are the difference between dumplings and wontons besides the obvious that they are diff. in shape and size? Is the filling any different b/c it always seem that they are filled the with the same things. Just wondering if you knew.

Thanks for sharing the recipes! I’m really enjoying trying new things of my culture and incorporating them into our repertoire of meals! I always go to your site when I’m stumped as to what to make for dinner and/or need inspiration!

Grace, I’m sorry I haven’t made that soup yet but you can add it to a chicken broth or pork stock, or almost any Chinese soup.

For your dumpling question, a wonton is technically a type of dumpling because dumplings, but I am assuming that you are asking more what the difference is between the standard Chinese dumpling and standard wonton, right? This is also hard to answer because different regions make their wontons and dumplings differently. In general, dumpling skinds are thicker than wonton skins and never contain egg in the dough, while Cantonese-style wonton skins will use egg. Fillings can be theoretically anything but it is less common for wonton fillings to ever have vegetables in it, while dumplings will often be pork and some kind of vegetable, or completely vegetarian. Hope that helps!

Oh, I saw this on The Kitchn and had to come look! I also thought it was just my mom who made this concoction! And I had plenty of ABC friends…maybe it’s just that this salad never left our house ever. I’ll have to ask my mom about where she got this from and ask my cousins if they ever had this at home.

Ours didn’t have peas or eggs. Instead it always had chunks of fresh tart apples and pineapple and usually shrimp or (my favorite!) lobster rather than ham. Boy, I loved it between two slices of buttered white bread!

I still make mom’s shrimp version but it’s been years since I’ve had a ham version. Maybe I’ll try doing the ham, peas, and eggs next time but not sure if it will be too much of a departure from what I’m used to.

Hello, I came over from The Kitchn, too. I’ve just moved to Hong Kong so this kind of caught my eye. Potato salads like this are so interesting. Plain (American?) potato salads are dreadful, but the addition of the different veggies sounds fantastic. My most recent try at potato salad had some crunchy vinegar-soaked onions, but now I have to say, yours sounds more fresh tasting. Thanks for the inspiration!

No way! My mom makes this potato salad too and I thought it was only her! I saw the picture on The Kitchn and thought, “Hey that looks like mom’s potato salad!” I guess it’s totally a Chinese thing! Yeah her recipe was handed down to her by my grandma. I love it. It’s very yummy for sure.

Oh my god, this is totally the way my dad used to make it, too, and now I make it the same way! (I’m also Chinese American, BTW). I wonder what other distinctly Chinese American recipes there are out there.

Yoshi, because mayo alone is not what identifies this sandwich, or more importantly the potato salad, which can be eaten as is or in a sandwich. While there are versions with pickles and cucumbers, or without ham, or with apples, those again, I consider different, perhaps as the dish migrated through different cultures, it changed. The only time I’ve seen people, or heard of others, making it nearly identical to my mother’s is with Chinese-Americans.

Of all crazy things, my mom used to make a similar potato salad – the only real difference was the addition of cubed cheddar cheese – and she hasn’t a drop of Chinese in her heritage (Scottish and German, mostly). Delicious stuff!